Tracking and revealing the trolls....ok or not?

When someone deliberately sets out to upset people by making vile racist remarks like that. The first victim was killed not far from me, so it did bring it home to roost, sad little racists like that hide behind anonymity, they don't like it when people know the truth about them.

The internet is anonymous, but it's a free society, if someone wants to expose someone for what they are, then they should be allowed to. It's clear this particular racist is a loser anyway. He probably blames all immigrants/ people of a different colour for his own apparent lack of success.

There's something rather ... satisfying in putting a public face to a particularly vicious & destructive troll.

They lose whatever power they might have imagined they had immediately. Or anyone else might have imagined they had ....
Just another loser.
What a surprise.

I find it rather bizarre. "So there you go, an internet troll, that's what they look like?" Excuse me, everyone who looks like him is an internet troll? That is all rather a case of ramping up the hysteria in a effort to increase the drama of the program.

I cannot, of course, comment on whether that creep's activities are illegal, because i don't know the law where he lives. In the United States, what he does is not illegal unless and until he willfully incites others to criminal activity. Many "hate crime" laws in the United States have been thrown out on appeal to Federal courts on a basis that motive is not relevant to the crime which is committed. (Of course, motive is used by prosecutors in an attempt to show the guilt of an accused person, but it's one of the weakest reeds in their bag of tricks.)

In the U.S., the standard is whether or not someone willfully incites others to criminal activity. At the same time, in the U.S., what they've done here-- to track the guy down and follow him around with a camera--is not illegal, either, so i'm rather ambivalent about it. I'm not overly impressed with the television production, which seems to be manufacturing drama. Of course, as i've said, i don't know if what that creep does is illegal or not, where he lives.

We've got our Pamela Rosa and her new online racist boy friend, but no one can stop her from posting what she likes to post. Nor can anyone stop others from characterizing her as a racist bitch. That is to say, no one but the site owners. We are, after all, on private property here.

I dont see anything different between this investigative reporter and Jerry SPringer. The only point he managed to make was that the media can also be an intrusive and cruel dodderhead if it so chooses and noone can do anything about it.

People choose to go on Springer, they don't get found out.

only partly true. Many are actually "Ambushed" to see their reaxctions on the tube. The point is that both are idiotic pandering for viewers. I dont see any service that was performed on outing the troll. Does the tv station want to have him Targeted? Theres nuts all over.

THAT'S my worry.

Yes, it has an emotional appeal....but I fear it appeals to revenge.

Yes....I am too....but I think I am coming down on the "it's not ok" side. I'd hate it to happen to me.

With very, very minor exceptions, there is not a newspaper anywhere in this country that would publish an opinion from anyone not identifying him/herself with name and city.

The anonymity of the Internet has, in my opinion, spawned huge amounts of hate speech; it has begun to make that kind of speech acceptable and popular. It is, in my opinion, a negative trend for civility...and ultimately for free speech.

I honestly think aliases should not be allowed...that any comment made should be made with the absolute certainty that the identity of the person making the comment can be easily obtained.

I understand and acknowledge that intelligent people can disagree strongly with my feelings on this.


Yup...tracking down and revealing trolls is not an unreasonable thing.

I feel pretty much that way, but i hesitate to impose my values, conditioned by the law and the spirit of the law in the United States, in such a discussion. For all that i know, people in England my be OK with this sort of thing.

The American broadcast journalist Geraldo Rivera is credited with inventing "ambush journalism." Although moderately successful in his trade, i think it ultimately hurt his career. I think a lot of people take your line that they would hate to have that happen to them. Rivera became somewhat of a joke in the United States.

i feel no reason to provide my identity if i just want to be prick on the internet, if i want to talk **** about folks it's my business, i do it publicly as well, were for the most part i'm just as anonymous, i comment on people in stores, on the street etc, if i break the law i can be found and identified, if i'm just being a jerk, who cares

if something is said (and meant) that's clearly illegal under a particular jurisdictions laws than by all means go ahead and track folks down, but i have the same right to anonymity here as i do in public

Hmmmm......is there evidence there is more hate speech?

Anonymity certainly allows for it.

I don't have any I can quote...just speaking from what I see happening.

I do not see some of the hate-filled ranting going on in newspapers, where names are required, so I am making what could be an inappropriate conclusion about the issue.

Aliases have been used throughout history...mostly to protect the individual from harm. But I think many do it on the Internet just so they can spew stuff that would not dare do using their real name. (Once again, I am simply supposing here...no evidence I can produce.)

I think you're assuming too much there Frank. I doubt that newspaper editors are going to print hate filled rants, so there's really no baseline from which to judge. Certainly newspapers, as privately owned entities, are not required to print anything. People who write to newspapers could use false names and addresses, i doubt that many newspapers put any time or money into verifying these things. Once again, though, the strongest argument against your thesis is the selective sample. I suspect those letters to the editor written in crayon never see the light of day.

In Rome, two thousand years ago, the incidence of slander written on walls in the streets grew so bad that the city legion (roughly, the police) were required to patrol the streets all day and night. Just as soon as it became clear that that was impractical, and the patrols stopped, the graffitti came back. Such slanderous graffitti has been found on the walls of Pompey and Herculaneum.

The big difference is how widely visible the walls have become. The hate mongers can reach a larger audience now. But the old dictum of considering the source still applies. There are clowns here whose posts i have no read for years. People who are gullible enough to be taken in by the hate mongers are not going to be protected by any restraints on interweb usage, in my never humble opinion.

Be interesting if we could think of some means of measuring.

I was thinking of the Roman graffiti, too.....I do wonder, though, if it was more a means of free speech in a fairly oppressive society, often aimed at power, rather than hate speech directed at races or religions, though?

U think he looked sad?
U may be more discerning than I am.





This is an anonymous forum,
but a leftist remaining in it now 1ce invaded my computer
and identified me by my full name and she even posted a picture
of someone else (from FaceBook) in addition to his full name
because she hated our advocacy of curtailed, constricted, limited government.
Specifically, she detested our opposition to legally mandated censorship.
In other words: anonymity is OK, as long as u say things that liberals LIKE and approve.
Censorship by intimidation of exposure is decided by those criteria.

She got away with it, too. No ill effects whatsoever befell her as a result of those transgressions.





Because he was using a bus??
I dunno about that, Izzy.
I 've known successful NY lawyers (including myself) who drive,
or take limosines or cabs or buses and subways with little thought about it,
depending on time of day or nite and where thay r going. Mayor Bloomber takes subways n buses.

or maybe it was his wearing of jeans? I admit that we don't do that much.
I did it as a kid, in Arizona.





Explain??
How is one related to the other??????
What is it about him that leads u to believe
that he has not been successful ?

Maybe I missed something.

Oh yes, i was not comparing that graffitti to hate speech, although a good deal of it was personally hateful. The poet Ovid was exiled to what is now the Ukraine because he wrote satires of influential people. It was definitely a repressive society, and there were definitely dissenting voices, although most were not as foolish as Ovid.

You could tell he was living in a sink council estate, that's not a measure of success.